Eric G. Ekdale, Ph.D.

I am a comparative anatomist with interests in the evolution and phylogenetic history of mammals. My present research centers on the morphological foundations of the senses of hearing and balance throughout placental mammal clades, and in particular baleen whales.

After receiving my undergraduate degree in biology at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, I studied evolutionary biology at San Diego State University for my Masters degree and paleobiology at The University of Texas at Austin for my Ph.D. My dissertation was a broad scale study investigating both interspecific and intraspecific variation within the middle and inner ear regions  of extinct proboscideans (mammoths and mastodons) from central Texas, a growth series of the gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica), extinct mammals from the Cretaceous of Asia, and a high-level anatomical comparison of the inner ear cavities across Placentalia as a whole.  

I continued evolutionary research on the anatomy and systematics of extinct and extant whales as a post-doc at the San Diego Natural History Museum. In addition, I have engaged in various scholarly and academic activities at the Natural History Museum, San Diego State University, and several other schools in the San Diego area.